Refuting Creationism - The Last Woolly Mammoths Were Dying Out Just As Creationism's God Was Allegedly Comitting Global Genocide.

Last wooly mammoths lived on Wrangle Island, Siberia.

Wrangle Island landscape

Last surviving woolly mammoths were inbred but not doomed to extinction | ScienceDaily

Just as creationism’s little god was creating a small flat planet with a dome over it in the Middle East and thinking it was the Universe, the last remaining mammoths were becoming isolated on Wrangle Island off the north coast of Siberia.

The cause was a rise in sea-level which isolated a small population of about 8 individuals, which grew to a stable population of about 200-300. They were to survive there for the next 6,000 and so were contemporaneous with early human civilisations such as the Egyptians and Sumerians.

Although there is no mention of them or any other species of elephant in the Bible, creationist dogma says there must have been two (or seven depending on version) and that all elephants have evolved by warp-speed evolution since, including the extinct mammoths and mastodons.

This recent addition to creationist dogma, which used to argue that there was no such thing as evolution, was invented to get round the manifest absurdity of a wooden boat containing two (or seven) of every extant and extinct species. The only problem is that this last remaining group of mammoths went extinct about 4,000 years ago, i.e., at about the time of the legendary genocidal flood, so couldn't have evolved from the survivors, warp-speed evolution or not.

Exactly why they became extinct is still something of a mystery but a recent study by a joint collaboration between the Swedish Museum of Natural History and Stockholm University, led by Love Dalén, an evolutionary geneticist, has shown that, although the population on Wrangler Island was highly inbred, that was probably not the cause.

The researchers have published their findings, open access, in the Cell Press journal Cell. According to information made available by Cell Press ahead of publication:

What information do you have on the mammoths of Wrangle Island, Siberia? The mammoths of Wrangel Island, located in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Siberia, are notable for being among the last surviving populations of woolly mammoths. Here are some key points about them:

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1. Isolation and Survival: Wrangel Island's mammoth population became isolated from mainland Siberian populations due to rising sea levels at the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 years ago. This isolation allowed them to survive thousands of years longer than their mainland counterparts.
2. Late Extinction: The mammoths on Wrangel Island survived until approximately 4,000 years ago, which means they coexisted with human civilizations such as the early Egyptians and the Sumerians. This makes Wrangel Island mammoths one of the last known populations of woolly mammoths.
3. Genetic Bottleneck and Diversity: Genetic studies have shown that the Wrangel Island mammoths suffered from a genetic bottleneck, leading to reduced genetic diversity. This was due to their small, isolated population size. The genetic problems likely contributed to their eventual extinction.
4. Environmental Changes and Human Impact: It is believed that a combination of environmental changes and possibly human hunting led to their extinction. Changes in climate could have affected their food sources, and human presence on the island might have increased the pressures on their survival.
5. Physical Characteristics and Adaptations: Despite their isolation, Wrangel Island mammoths were similar in size and appearance to other woolly mammoths. However, some adaptations specific to the island's environment might have occurred, though these are less well-documented.
6. Fossil Evidence and Research: Fossil remains and other evidence from Wrangel Island have provided significant insights into the life and extinction of these late-surviving mammoths. Studies of these remains have helped scientists understand more about mammoth genetics, their adaptations to cold environments, and the factors leading to their extinction.

Overall, the Wrangel Island mammoths represent a fascinating chapter in the history of these iconic Ice Age giants, highlighting how isolated populations can persist long after their species has largely disappeared elsewhere.

The last population of woolly mammoths was isolated on Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia 10,000 years ago, when sea levels rose and cut the mountainous island off from the mainland. A new genomic analysis reveals that the isolated mammoths, who lived on the island for the subsequent 6,000 years, originated from at most 8 individuals but grew to 200-300 individuals within 20 generations. The researchers report June 27 in the journal Cell that the Wrangel Island mammoths' genomes showed signs of inbreeding and low genetic diversity but not to the extent that it can explain their ultimate (and mysterious) extinction.

We can now confidently reject the idea that the population was simply too small and that they were doomed to go extinct for genetic reasons. This means it was probably just some random event that killed them off, and if that random event hadn't happened, then we would still have mammoths today.

Love Dalén, co-corresponding author
Centre for Palaeogenetics
Stockholm, Sweden.

In addition to shedding light on woolly mammoth population dynamics, this analysis of Wrangel Island mammoths could help inform conservation strategies for present-day endangered animals.

Mammoths are an excellent system for understanding the ongoing biodiversity crisis and what happens from a genetic point of view when a species goes through a population bottleneck because they mirror the fate of a lot of present-day populations.

Marianne Dehasque, co-corresponding author
Centre for Palaeogenetics
Stockholm, Sweden.

To understand the genomic consequences of the Wrangel Island bottleneck on the mammoth population, the team analyzed the genomes of 21 woolly mammoths -- 14 from Wrangel Island, and 7 from the mainland population that predated the bottleneck. Altogether, the samples spanned the last 50,000 years of the woolly mammoth's existence, providing a window into how mammoth genetic diversity changed through time.

Compared to their mainland ancestors, the Wrangel Island mammoth genomes showed signs of inbreeding and low genetic diversity. In addition to overall low genetic diversity, they showed reduced diversity in the major histocompatibility complex, a group of genes known to play a critical role in the vertebrate immune response.

The researchers showed that the population's genetic diversity continued to decline throughout the 6,000 years that the mammoths inhabited Wrangel Island, though at a very slow pace, suggesting that the population size was stable up until the very end. And although the island's mammoth population gradually accumulated moderately harmful mutations throughout its 6,000-year tenure, the researchers showed that the population was slowly purging the most harmful mutations.

If an individual has an extremely harmful mutation, it's basically not viable, so those mutations gradually disappeared from the population over time, but on the other hand, we see that the mammoths were accumulating mildly harmful mutations almost up until they went extinct. It's important for present day conservation programs to keep in mind that it's not enough to get the population up to a decent size again; you also have to actively and genetically monitor it because these genomic effects can last for over 6,000 years.

>Marianne Dehasque.

Though the mammoth genomes analyzed in this study straddle a large timespan, they do not include the final 300 years of the species' existence. However, the researchers have unearthed fossils from the mammoth's final period and plan to conduct genomic sequencing in the future.

What happened at the end is a bit of a mystery still -- we don't know why they went extinct after having been more or less fine for 6,000 years, but we think it was something sudden. I would say there is still hope to figure out why they went extinct, but no promises.Love Dalén